1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a control method thereof, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an office or under an environment of print-on-demand (POD), when using a printing apparatus, a consideration to prevent information leakage is required. Therefore, the printing apparatus has a function for preventing an output product from being viewed or being brought out by someone.
As a function for preventing the information leakage, a post-authentication printing (secured printing) function is generally known which starts printing after sending print data to the printing apparatus and then authenticating a user based on authentication information received from the user.
Further, there is a printing apparatus that secures confidentiality by outputting a printed matter to a lockable output destination. In this case, the printing apparatus outputs in advance the print data to the lockable output destination. After that, the printing apparatus receives authentication information from a user and authenticates the user. Then, an electronic key is unlocked at the output destination.
When printing a document with high confidentiality, in the printing apparatus, it is checked that the user exists near the printing apparatus, and the printing starts or the unlocking is performed at the output destination. Thus, it is prevented that the printed matter is left or brought out, thereby improving the security.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-228113 discusses a technique to switch post-authentication printing and an output to a lockable output destination according to the number of print sheets of a print job. With the technique, if the print job has the number of print sheets of a predetermined number or more, data is printed to the lockable output destination. If the print job has the number of printed sheets less than the predetermined number, the post-authentication printing is set. As a consequence, a waiting time of the user is shortened and the security is improved.
In recent years, there has been a printing apparatus having a function for post-processing such as stapling, punching, folding, or bookbinding to an output product after printing.
However, with a printing apparatus with a lockable output destination, in many cases, there are mixedly a locked output destination and an unlocked output destination. In general, if a plurality of users outputs data to the same locked output destination, a print job of another user cannot be output until removing the output product to secure the confidentiality.
The number of output destinations of the printing apparatus is predetermined. As a consequence, under an environment of a plurality of users, the print job with low security is output to the unlocked output destination to shorten the waiting time of the user.
In the printing apparatus having the function of the post-processing such as the stapling, the punching, the folding, or the bookbinding, the output destination is limited depending on the type of the post-processing to the output product in many cases. The limitation is caused by a configuration of an inline finisher and a sheet conveyance path.
For example, there is a limitation that if the output product is subjected to the stapling by the finisher on the downstream of the sheet conveyance path, the output product cannot then be output to a stacker on the upstream thereof.
To the limitation, a print setting screen is controlled on application or a printer driver for generating a print job so that the output destination is not designated out-of the limitation due to the designation of the post-processing such as the stapling, the punching, the folding, or the bookbinding as much as possible.
However, when receiving data from a printer driver manufactured by a manufacturer different from that of the printing apparatus or application that cannot perform a complicate exclusive-control, the output destination out-of the limitation designated by the post-processing can be designated.
If designating the output destination out-of the limitation designated by the post-processing with the print job, priority is generally put on the post-processing and the output destination is different from the designation of the user. Because it is considered that the designation of the post-processing that directly influences on an output form of a printed matter is more important than the designation of the output destination.
However, in the printing apparatus with the lockable output destination, there are mixedly the output destination to which the confidentiality is secured and the output destination available for other persons. As a consequence, there is a possibility that the security deteriorates if immediately outputting data to the output destination different from the designation of the user.